[ruby-core:34786] Re: [Ruby 1.8-Feature#4239] Let's begin a talk for "1.8.8" -- How's needed for surviving 1.8?

  On 22-01-2011 07:31, Zeno Davatz wrote:
> Issue #4239 has been updated by Zeno Davatz.
>
>
> Dear Matsumoto-san
>
> Thank you for your reply.
>
> Your question is rhetorical, not practical. No I do not suggest that.
>
> I suggest for the Future that you should make and maintain a list of the most popular gems and their maintainers, that you consult _before_ you release a new Ruby-Version. And if a gem is very, very popular but the owner is gone then you should try personally to find a new owner for the gem (invest personal time, show personal care about the gem), just to keep the Eco-System running and evolving.
> ...

Zeno, you seem to take a lot of wrong assumptions about Ruby developers. 
They don't do development for living, they don't like the current Ruby's 
development approach, etc.

That is not the feedback I get from most rubysts, but just for some of 
them. So I would say there is nothing wrong in the Ruby language 
evolution and its ecosystem. If you want a somewhat static language, you 
should choose Java or C++. Ruby is getting traction not only because of 
its gems but because of the language itself. And it wouldn't have 
achieved that if it has remained static along the years only improving 
keeping backward compatibility.

The Ruby community has good habits like writing automated tests for 
their application, so that they can more easily upgrade their Ruby and 
gem versions and fix whatever is broken. If some gem is unmaintained, 
you should stop using it anyway... That is how the Ruby community feels 
about the subject and you are wasting your and our times trying to make 
Ruby development model be similiar to the Kernel/MS 
Windows/Java/Whatever one. Ruby is special in so many ways and its 
development model is one of the keys that allows that. I don't see 
nothing wrong with the current approach (except that I would prefer Ruby 
to change to Git, but that was already discussed in another thread), 
although I understand that developers are different. Some developers 
don't want to write automated tests. They don't want to rewrite working 
code while upgrading. They don't like changes very much. I just think 
that they should choose a language that fits their philosophy, instead 
of trying to change the language philosophy to fit their's. Java 7 is 
taking several years to get approved and has no significant changes. 
Perl 6 will probably bit the record for some language to be released, 
but that is ok, since it is fundamentally another language that couldn't 
be called Perl anymore, and that is a good think. I was a happy Perl 
developer before I knew Ruby. And I'm inclined to go back to Perl 6 when 
it is finished, since it has lots of great features. But that is how the 
communities are. They are what they are and they won't change fundamentally.

I don't mind when you try to convince us that Ruby should change in some 
way. I'm just writing this because I'm tired of seeing you talking about 
Ruby developers when you don't know them. You may know some of them but 
you can't talk in name of all of them or in name of Lucas Nussbaum as 
you've just did if you can't know what you are talking about. Please, 
talk in the first person.

I take my hat off to Matz and all ruby-core developers and I feel most 
Rubysts do the same. So I would like to take the chance to thank you 
all. I guess you are already trying to ignore some comments on this 
thread, but anyway, if some of you may be confused, I just wanted to 
make sure that there are developers that approve your work and your 
development model, evolving fast even if it means breaking compatibility 
from time to time. I know others disagree, but I want to say that I 
agree with this model.

Thanks, Rodrigo.